Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Among those Catholics in public life who openly defy the clear teaching of the Catholic Church concerning the inviolable dignity of every human life from conception to natural death is Representative Patrick Kennedy. The son of the late Senator Edward “Ted” Kennedy, he represents Rhode Island’s First Congressional District in the United States House of Representatives.

Your rejection of the Church’s teaching on abortion falls into a different category – it’s a deliberate and obstinate act of the will; a conscious decision that you’ve re-affirmed on many occasions.

There is what I would consider hard fascism/socialism/communism, and then there’s the softer variety. Both are oppressive with regard to freedoms and both share multiple traits. They differ though in how they achieve their goals. In the case of hard communism, governments like the old Soviet Union and their satellite eastern bloc countries used the gun as the primary means to enforce and promulgate their ideology.

Fast forward now to modern day Europe and America; the age of Obama is in full swing and Europe is already nothing more than an impotent shadow of its former self. In our day and age, we have a softer variety of socialism to contend with. Instead of guns, the ideology is supported with various opiates like government entitlements and the redistribution of wealth. Bullets have essentially been replaced with a gigantic government wet nurse who insists on keeping her adult charges in diapers.

But, peer a little deeper . . . just beneath the guns or diapers . . . and you will see a commonality between the hard and the soft varieties of fascism/socialism/communism. What you will unearth is sloth. I’m not talking about the animal mind you. I’m speaking instead of sloth with respect to its definition under the seven deadly sins, which unfortunately has become all but lost in our era.

Peter Kreeft in his wonderful and relevant book, “Back to Virtue,” reminds our generation what sloth is and isn’t. It is not, for example, laziness. Americans especially are highly productive. We are, by nature, go-getters. Many of us live at a frenetic pace, balancing the responsibilities of work and family. We are hardly lazy . . . yet, as a nation we are sliding to Gomorrah on the sloth express.

So, what is the old time definition of sloth that is so lost from the common knowledge of our era and thusly so imperils our society? According to St. Augustine it is, “sorrow about spiritual good.” Peter Kreeft gives an updated version of Augustine’s definition by restating it as:

Sloth is, as Kreeft explains, the state of being when one has simply lost his appetite for God. This, of course, also happens to be an absolutely necessary prerequisite of both hard and soft fascism/socialism/communism. In the hard variety, churches were simply taken over by the state and converted to other non-religious uses. In countries like China, the practice of non-state sanctioned religion is a punishable offence worthy of an all expense paid trip to a re-education resort (aka, a concentration camp).

On the other hand, the soft variety of socialism encourages sloth by employing the equivalent of cyanide laced Kool Aide. In our current era, a little bit of sugar makes the socialist ideology go down. Religion in soft socialism becomes pigeonholed as an entirely subjective, personal ‘tradition’ that should never, ever intrude into one’s civic life. If you do not behave toward religion in this prescribed manner, then you are guilty of violating soft socialism’s uber-value, tolerance. Of course, in soft socialism’s case, tolerance is used as the primary weapon to dismantle the people’s reliance on God.

The governor also spoke briefly about Bristol and the choices she had to make and the love and joy that Tripp has brought to their lives. Clearly, Governor Palin is very proud of her daughter and her grandson that is almost a year old. Governor Palin stated that people make mistakes but a beautiful child came as a result of that mistake. A mistake is no reason to take a life.

There were plenty of religious references that would send the lefties into spasms. It was rather refreshing to see someone speak of their religious beliefs at a political event. She even read John 16:13 to the crowd: "But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative..."

To my fellow pro-lifers, this passage makes sense to all of us. The governor’s speech was so passionate and so full of love for all of God’s children. As she stated many like to call us “anti-freedom or anti-abortion”, but the truth is that we are “pro-children.”

Something else to make the liberal heads spin, she then progressed into the health care reform bill. Questioning why it is that lawmakers will not take the time to read the bill. Governor Palin also spoke of the need for Speaker Pelosi to allow an amendment to bar American taxpayers from having to pay for abortions.

This line of speaking brought us to my favorite line that the Governor stated this evening: Abortion is NOT health care.

Personally, this was my favorite line. These words are so very true. A baby is not something simple like a wart that you can just have removed; it is a life and that life should not be treated like every other health issue. (The whole wart analogy was mine, not the governor’s. I did get her point, though.)

Governor Palin spoke at length about the Pope, John Paul II. Pope John Paul II had a real passion for life. Wisconsin is pretty heavily Catholic and the crowd went nuts each time she referenced some of the passionate words the Pope spoke in on the issue of life.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue speaks to the way Catholics and Muslims are treated in the upcoming film, “2012”:

When we got word recently that the movie “2012” depicts the Vatican being blown up, along with the famous statue from Rio, Christ the Redeemer, we were unmoved. Why? Because this occurs during the end of the world in a massive destruction. This kind of sensationalism, we reasoned, is standard fare for director Roland Emmerich: he is the guru of the “blow ‘em up” genre of movies. But now we’ve learned that while Catholics get theirs, Muslims are spared. Out of fear, of course.

Emmerich is more than a coward—he is a liar who has it out for Catholics. Last year, he was quoted saying, “I would like to erase all nations and religions.” Not true. He is quite content to live with Islam, even though he readily admits it is a religion of terror. When asked why he did not show the destruction of Kaaba, the religious structure in the Grand Mosque in Mecca, he said, “I wanted to do that, I have to admit. You can actually let Christian symbols fall apart, but if you would do this with [an] Arab symbol, you would have…a fatwa.”

So why was the Sistine Chapel designated for destruction? “We have to show how this gets destroyed….I am against organized religion.” Emmerich lies again. He is not against Islam.

After bragging that the movie shows the Sistine Chapel falling on people’s heads, Emmerich explains the moral of the story: “Never pray in front of a big church. Pray by yourself.” He lies again: Muslims who want to pray in front of a mosque are safe. That’s because, as Emmerich sees it, they’re known to kill those who offend their religion.

Every time I say Hollywood hates Christianity, especially Catholicism, my critics cringe. But they never offer evidence that I’m wrong.

Bill Donohue nails it. The liberals are cowards and they fear. Better yet they know many Catholics will pay money to be insulted. Oh well, another movie to skip.